Philip Bosco, Harriet Harris, and David Hyde Pierce to Perform With NY Philharmonic

Actors Philip Bosco, Harriet Harris, and David Hyde Pierce will be making their New York Philharmonic debuts in upcoming concert performances of Berlioz’s last opera, Béatrice et Bénédict.

The three will have speaking roles in the French comic opera, which is based on the Shakespeare comedy Much Ado About Nothing. The opera uses speech and dialogue to connect its musical numbers instead of traditional operatic recitatives, and the dialogue in the Philharmonic performances will be performed in English while the sung text will be in French.

Harris (a Tony Award winner for her performance in Thoroughly Modern Millie) will portray Beatrice as a counterpart to mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer’s singing performance of the role, Pierce (The Heidi Chronicles, TV’s Frasier) will portray Benedick to tenor Gordon Gietz’s singing, and Bosco (a Tony winner for Lend Me a Tenor) will perform the spoken role of Leonato. Among the other singers in the cast are soprano Susan Gritton as Héro, mezzo-soprano Nancy Maultsby as Ursule, Keith Phares as Claudio, bass-baritones Alfred Walker and Carlos Condé as Don Pedro and Somarone, and the Westminster Symphonic Choir.

Béatrice et Bénédict will be performed on April 9, 10, and 12 at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. All performances are at 7:30pm.